


danger, danger---

by sakon



Category: Ayatsuri Sakon | Puppet Master Sakon
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26295268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakon/pseuds/sakon
Summary: The something, the feeling, is telling him to run, run, run—leave and go, but he cannot go.





	danger, danger---

New people murmur; a new case is about to emerge. This isn’t the first time or the last, and nor will it be for the longest time. Trouble follows him, and he walks along, outliving the ghost and replacing it with a new one, every substitution burning more than the last. Trouble is misery, and misery loves company. 

He’s walked to a mansion this time. A ride was offered, but he didn’t take it. Having Ukon to chatter through the air was more compelling than sitting through the thick, silent tension. The anxiety seeping from his nerves only proved it.

It’s a mansion, a vast estate with a bustling group of aristocrats. They walk elegantly, set their pinkies to muffle the clink of glass against the table — or that was what he would say if they were anything like that. Rich, yes, but not elegant nor refined. One man has muscle under the shirt and a thick accent, perhaps from another country, while another slurs obscenities and flirts vivaciously.

With the air pricking at his fingertips – a sign of something to come — he supposes that he’ll be the first to go. Sakon lets him flirt, unable to say much else regardless; his demeanor will never allow him to retort, merely cover his face in the facsimile of a geisha. Ukon can’t speak without his hand, and a man of his status cannot display such a childish wonder in front of guests until they want so.

Regardless, there’s no point in sullying the last hours of his life.

Danger. Something’s whispering – then murmuring, then screaming for him to move. For his body to move, for his muscles to uncurl, to conquer the tension and back away, he doesn’t know what it is, but it’s thick in the air. He can’t heed it — there’s no running from this. Perhaps it’s his unique brand of stupidity, something of that vicious kind, but he cannot run.

He looks around, fingers itching for the familiar pads of wood. It’s always inevitable, unstoppable — he’s tried to stop It before, only rousing suspicion to himself, cementing his first and last time — and it’s carving into the day. Night approaches, purple misting over the baby blues and flying pheasants and rails. Rare to happen in the day.

Nobody can feel it but him. Something’s clawing at his leg, at his heart, and there’s a tentative offer to seat him in a cushioned chair by a soft-spoken man, one of the few who aren’t drunk on money and pride. Sakon hopes that the kind man, Tanaka-san, does not fall. He still cares, though less, for the rest, but his eyes are on the man in corduroy pants and a thick-knit sweater.

Nice people have their limits. Sakon only hopes the man did not find his as he drinks the water offered, wondering if there’s poison, barely sniffing to smell. He drinks it anyway, ignoring the sensations he knows all too well.

They bury deeper and deeper. His lungs weigh against his body; he cannot move. It’s to come and ----

A shriek.

The peace ends, announced by the thundering of dozens of oxfords and thick heels clack against the cold tile. He raises his hand, feeling the couch cushion bounce under his touch as he bids the last and final comfortable thing goodbye, adrenaline injected in his bloodstream once more. It’s come from a cupboard down the hall, one says. Or a master bedroom. Or something else.

The something, the feeling, is telling him to _run, run, run—leave and go_ , but he cannot go. Ukon’s on his hand swifter than a second, chattering as he swerves into the next doorway and the next, among the lake of people. His other hand folds neatly into his side, unraveling from their tense state, still drowning in dread and some distant kind of fear he’s used to — the one that doesn’t bother him as much as it should.

 _Danger._ Ukon’s saying something — isn’t this dangerous, why do you always get thrown into the mix? — a _nd danger._ Sakon shrugs away the buzzing in his fingers because Ukon is there, and his confidence feels higher once more, and the danger fades into the curiosity he knows. A field of people, the danger they now know.

The danger, even as he ignores it, is still present.


End file.
